Arts and Sciences announces First Year Seminars to fulfill first-year writing requirement

New students and transfers needing to fulfill first-semester writing requirements of the Liberal Arts Core are invited to register for First Year Seminars (CAS 100), offered this spring by Syracuse University’s College of Arts and Sciences. Each course is led by a highly qualified Humanities Faculty Fellow, and is designed to teach academic writing that is embedded in a thematic framework.

For more information, contact the college’s office of curriculum, instruction, and programming at (315) 443-1414.

According to Gerald R. Greenberg, the college’s senior associate dean, each seminar has five objectives: 1. to focus on the subject area of the instructor’s academic expertise; 2. to provide a series of writing assignments, including sequential assignments and assignments based on rewriting; 3. to devote attention to the meaning and importance of academic integrity; 4. to teach a style of academic referencing that is specific to the course discipline; and 5. to examine criteria for determining appropriate and inappropriate sources.

This spring, the college will offer six First Year Seminars in the humanities and social sciences. Courses are divided into “critical reflections” and “non-critical reflections.”

“Critical reflection” courses are as follows:

“Documentary Poetics: The Art of Witness” focuses on poetry as documentary.

“Melting Pot or Not?: American Multicultural Voices in Transition” is a literature-based course that explores contemporary ethnic American perspectives, including African American, Hispanic American, Native American, Asian American, and Jewish American.

“World Crises and the Possibility of World Justice” begins by looking at seemingly forgone problems, including climate change, socio-economic inequality, and violence, and then progresses to a philosophical examination of them at a global level.

“Race in the Age of Obama” is taught by Dana Nichols, who recently came to SU from the faculty of St. John Fisher College in Rochester. “Some pundits claim that the election of President Obama has ushered in a new colorblind era,” she says. “We’ll consider this idea by examining current political debates, such as Arizona’s recent immigration law, and critical race theory.”

“Non-critical reflection” courses are as follows:

“Madness, Mystery, Genius?: Examining Mythologies of the Artist” explores canonical and non-canonical works of art, as well as the historiography that stirred the notoriety of certain artists, patrons, and works.

“Consuming Culture” looks at the art of cooking in Renaissance Italy. The course will cover such topics as health and diet, agricultural production, cooking and food taboos, medicine and the body, as well as private and public dining rituals.